


I Need You

by TheLightFury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Ron Weasley, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Draco, M/M, Men Crying, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Potential Torture, Stressed Harry Potter, no specific details
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 11:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20209027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLightFury/pseuds/TheLightFury
Summary: Draco gets kidnapped by a group of Death Eaters children who are angry about his betrayal of their cause. Harry, his boyfriend, worries sick, even with his friend's support. A new development indicates that Draco may have escaped, but will he get home? What state will he be in? Harry can only wait to find out.





	I Need You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [donnarafiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnarafiki/gifts).

> This was based on a prompt given to me by the wonderful Donna Rafiki who demanded some hurt comfort, and who am I to resist? Hope that you enjoy!

“Mate, you’re making me dizzy, there’s nothing else we can do at the moment, please just stop!”

“ _ Stop?!  _ How can I  _ stop _ , Ron? My boyfriend is missing, he just disappeared off the face of the earth a few days ago when he was just supposed to be running out for chocolate ice cream and treacle tart, and some Death Eater’s children have been gathering momentum recently, meaning they could have abducted him and be torturing him,  _ right now,  _ because he betrayed them! Or because he helped the Ministry catch all their parents, or just  _ because!  _ They hate people just because of some stupid ideas about blood, they aren’t going to need a good reason to hate him!”

Harry gulped in a huge breath, pacing continuously around his living room. It had been three days. Three. Whole. Days. And still his man was missing. He’d had it. He’d heard it all from the Auror’s, how they were doing everything they could; tracing his magical signature, searching high and low, infiltrating the Death Eater activist groups, gathering intel and so on and so on... but it wasn’t enough! Draco could be dead by now! He could have starved by this time, or been denied water for so long that his body just shut down. He could have been whisked away by apparition to some far corner of the UK and exposed to the elements, tortured, and left for dead. He could have been beaten to death! Or just hit with the killing curse! There were a million different possibilities, and with each passing second, the chance of getting Draco back dwindled.  _ _ He couldn’t just accept that they were ‘doing everything they could’. He couldn’t just  _ stop. _ He had to do something! To help, to fight, to find him! He needed to-

“Harry!” Ron’s voice cut through his internal monologue, the ginger taking him roughly by the shoulders, forcibly stopping him. The urge to fight, to throw a hex at him, to break away raged through him, adrenaline pumping through his veins so violently he felt as though he could jump with every heartbeat. Yet just as suddenly as the urge came, it completely evaporated. The warm touch of his best friend somehow reached his very soul, cutting through thick layers of frenzy and panic to reveal the void of anguish, heartache, and hurt that constantly threatened to devour him. The same messy tangle of emotion he’d been running from continuously since Draco first went missing. But now, trapped under Ron’s hands, instinct triumphed, the tidal wave of pain flooding through him, forcing him to deflate against his best friend’s chest, tears welling up against his will. 

“I’m sorry, mate, really I am.” Ron murmured, squeezing him in a tight embrace, “It’ll be okay, we’ll find him. I know we will.” 

“I need him, Ron… It’s like a part of me is missing, I just- I can’t...”

“I know, mate, I know. Something will turn up, something will- Wait, what’s that?”

Still sniffling, Harry reluctantly pulled his head up off of Ron’s chest. The red-head stepped away, expression fixed into a slight frown, eyes focused on something behind Harry. The sudden loss of a warm, solid body against his seemed to emphasise the fact that his other-half was missing, magnifying the chill in the air, the gnawing anxiety in Harry’s gut. A sudden flap past his face brought him back to the present. 

On his coffee table, sat a brawny looking tawny owl ruffling his feathers, fixing both him and Ron with a brusque expression as he held out his leg. As he caught sight of the letter attached to it, Harry’s blood ran cold. 

It was scarlet. 

A Howler. Someone had sent him a Howler. In the middle of everything, all the panic, the worry, the  _ pain  _ of his partner being kidnapped, someone had sent him a  _ fucking Howler?!  _ Why?! Was this a sick joke?! Something to rub in the fact that his gorgeous, turned-over-a-new-leaf, rallies-for-unity-and-education-of-pureblood-children-to-stop-the-prejudice boyfriend was missing and that he somehow deserved all the hatred he still got ever damned day for his past mistakes?! 

“Mate, don’t open it. I’ll just-” Ron was moving towards it, wand at the ready to destroy.

“No! No, I want to know who it is!” Even as Ron tried to protest, Harry cast a wordless  _ Accio,  _ sending the letter flying off of the owl’s leg, much to his annoyance, and straight into Harry’s hand. The owl squawked in protest, flying over to Ron and nipping his ear painfully before flying out of the window. By the time it took for Ron to stop cursing at the retreating figure of the bird, Harry had opened the envelope. Seconds later, as Ron finally refocused on something other than his ear, a gravelly, menacing voice filled the room.

“ _ He thinks he’s so clever, so smart, but he’s just made things 100 times worse for himself. We’ll get him eventually. You just watch.” _

The last syllables echoed ominously in the silent room, before the Howler coughed and spluttered into flames. For a moment, everything but the ash fluttering to the ground was still, gripped by an invisible force as the implications of the Howler’s words revolved in both of their minds.

“Ron? What… What does that mean? Does-Does… Does that mean that Draco’s escaped? Do they not have him? Where is he?!” Hope, weak, and fragile and oh-so painful was filling Harry with warmth; hope that Draco would be fine. Hope that he’d escaped. Hope that he’d just walk through the door as if nothing had happened and sweep Harry off his feet. Ron’s gaze was still fixed on the spot where the letter had disappeared, eyes wide, jaw working as if a hundred different things wanted to tumble out of his mouth all at once.

“I- Mate, I think I need to go. I-I need to see if the auror’s know about this. Just-Just stay here, I’ll send a patronus when I know more, I promise!”

Within a few seconds, the Floo had roared into life, and once again, Harry was left in an empty home. 

“Please, Draco.” He whispered into the void. “Please come home.”

*

Hours had passed. The sky had darkened, the chill in the air had turned icy, and the clouds outside had multiplied tenfold, warning of miserable, cold, wet weather. Still, there was no Draco. 

Harry’s Floo had become a revolving door, constantly springing to life every half an hour or so. Hermione had come through first, having heard the latest from Ron; she’d run through on a break from research, offering tea, consolation, and of course a massive hug where her hair almost suffocated him. Then Neville had popped in, sitting with him in silence for a while as Harry had alternated between pacing back and forth and flopping into chairs, overwhelmed with despair and panic. Then Luna came round, managing to distract him for a few moments or so. Then Ginny, then Seamus and Dean, then Pansy, and then he’d lost track. Just as one person left, another came through. It was exhausting. As much as he loved his friends, as much as he knew he needed them right now, constantly putting on just that tiny bit of a brave face, keeping it together that little bit more than he would if he was alone, had completely drained him. When the Floo chimed again, he didn’t even have the energy to look up.

The sound of footsteps reached his ears, but barely registered. With every harsh, unsteady, and clumsy footstep, Harry felt the anxiety claw at him more voraciously, more violently, completely blocking his ability to think, to look, to notice anything around him. 

“Harry?” It sounded distant, as if he was underwater, or the person was calling him from miles away. He couldn’t bring himself to face another sympathetic face of one of his friends. He couldn’t force the anxiety away long enough to function.

“Harry. Please?” But the voice kept calling, kept begging, weak, feeble, hurt. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t cope anymore, why couldn’t people just leave him alone?!

“Please? Look at me? I need you.”

_ I need you?  _ The grip worry had on him reduced ever-so-slightly as those words registered. They were the exact words that had brought them together. The words that made up one of their in-jokes as a couple. The words they used for months instead of  _ I love you.  _ They were  _ their  _ words. But..

Finally Harry managed to tear his gaze from the random spot on the carpet he’d been burning a hole into for the past hour or so, turning to the doorway of the living room. There, leaning heavily on the doorframe, dried blood stained all over his face, one leg lifted at an awkward angle off the ground, hair in complete disarray, and pain written all over his beautiful bruised face, was Draco.

Time stood still for a moment, shock, joy, worry, and pain all swarming through Harry as fast as Niffler’s hunting for gold. But as soon as Draco’s eyes met Harry’s, the Slytherin whimpered in relief, collapsing forward, no longer able to support his own weight. Before Harry could even mouth his boyfriend’s name, he was across the room, catching him, settling them safely on the ground, holding him and  _ cradling  _ him close. As Harry drank in his partner’s scent, hating the rampant smell of blood and sweat, but savouring the underlying sweetness that was quintessentially  _ Draco,  _ Draco’s hands began clutching at Harry’s shirt, his arms, his hips,  _ anywhere  _ he could reach, as if terrified he would disappear at any moment.

“I was so worried about you!” Harry breathed, realising belatedly that he was crying, sobbing openly into his boyfriend’s dirty hair as he crushed Draco closer.

“I thought I was never going to see you again…” The Slytherin’s voice was just as choked as his own, sobs wracking his body.

“But you’re here! You did it! Fuck, I missed you so much!” He was running his hands through Draco’s hair, up and down his back, over his cheeks, drowning in the sensation of having his lover back; of being whole again. A hiss of pain escaped Draco’s lips. 

“Shit! Are you hurt? Am I hurting you? Fuck I’m such an idiot! You’ve got blood everywhere, I have no idea what they did to you, and I’ve just manhandled you like a-” He gulped a breath, heart rate spiralling out of control as he relived each and every one of his nightmares in a moment whilst panicking about how much worse he could have made Draco’s injuries. He loosened his grip, withdrawing slightly from his boyfriend.

“NO!” Draco yelled, digging his fingers painfully into Harry’s skin, panic plain on his face. Immediately Harry stopped, terrified of doing anything to hurt his lover. His man remained frozen in his arms, barely breathing. 

“It’s-It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere I promise, just tell me what I can do.” He murmured gently, after a minute of Draco not saying anything. 

“Don’t…” The Slytherin took a deep breath. “Don’t let me go.” His voice was barely above a whisper, shaky and uncertain. Harry’s heart shattered. 

“I won’t, Draco, I promise I won’t,” he all but cried. “Just, tell me if I hurt you, okay?” Once Draco had nodded, chewing on his bottom lip, eyes downcast, Harry slowly, tenderly, but firmly, wrapped his shaking man back up in his embrace. Tucking Draco’s head under his chin, he squeezed him gently, snuffling in Draco’s familiar scent as the Slytherin slowly relaxed against his chest.

"Merlin I missed you." He sighed, giving his boyfriend another gentle squeeze.

"Me too." Draco whispered, nuzzling into Harry, even as he grimaced in pain again. "I'm never going out for your stupid treacle tart ever again." Despite everything, or maybe it was because of everything, he didn't know, Harry found himself snorting, short, harsh huffs of laughter escaping him, making Draco's head bounce lightly on his chest. When he heard Draco's light, careful snigger join in, a fresh wave of relief, love, and sheer joy ran through him.

"Gorgeous, after this, you aren't going anywhere out of my sight ever again!" Draco's temple was begging to be kissed, lightly, gently, and Harry was powerless to resist.

"Deal. Let's not go anywhere for a week. I just… wanna stay with you."

"Anything you want, Draco. Anything you want."

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr! @april-thelightfury115


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